Let Me Die in His Footsteps (27 page)

“But Joseph Carl,” Abraham said, looking over his shoulder again. Ellis Baine is dead, and Abraham keeps looking because he’s the one who killed him. “He’s the reason we found Dale. He told Sheriff Irlene. He told her himself.”

Abraham takes his hat off and runs the brim through his fingers, working it around in a circle. He’s thinking, remembering.

“Wasn’t Joseph Carl who told,” he finally says. “Was you. You and your grandma, you took Joseph Carl his meals while he was locked up.”

Miss Watson nods. “I felt bad thinking about Dale out there in that river all alone. I couldn’t tell anyone what I done, so I said Joseph Carl told me where we’d find Dale. I told Sheriff Irlene that. Told Grandma and Papa too. Told them all that when I took Joseph Carl his tray, he confessed to me.”

Down at the house, the sheriff’s car pulls up the drive and two doors fly open. Daddy and Sheriff Fulkerson come running up the hill toward Annie.

“Juna made it all up,” Abraham says. “She told everyone Joseph Carl done all those things so no one would know you were mine.” He’s looking at Annie as he says it. She nods. “Wasn’t you Juna didn’t want,” he says. “You understand that? Was me she didn’t want.”

1936—SARAH

DADDY GAVE HER
to me that night. After I dropped the wood. After the rattle of it falling to the floor quieted and the room was silent, he stretched out his two hands, the baby girl cradled there, and handed her to me. Then he told me to get on. Get on out to the other room. Get on out.

He wrapped Juna in the tarps he spread every spring over the tobacco beds, dragged her up and over the rise behind the house, kept on as far as he could, covered her over with rocks, and said he’d bury her in the spring. No other choice. The ground was froze solid. We both knew she wouldn’t be there come spring. Something would take her, but we couldn’t, neither of us, say that.

We burned the mattress, the dry ticking bursting into a flame that let me get my first good look at that baby’s face. The fire warmed us, crackled, sparkled, showed me her dark eyes. She was fair-haired, at least for the time being, and as big as any baby should be. She wasn’t Joseph Carl’s. I knew she wasn’t; even when the women worried the baby was coming too early, I knew she wasn’t. I knew she was another man’s child, a man who had come before Joseph Carl.

Daddy shoveled dirt over the last of the flame, dousing the embers. He sent us inside and left us. When he came back, he had milk, most likely from the Brashears, most likely from a goat. We didn’t know, neither of us, what to give a child. I used one of the bottles Mrs. Ripberger had left along with all the tiny clothes. I had boiled them because that’s what the ladies told me to do. I touched the rubbery tip to the baby’s mouth, and she took to it. Just that much made me smile. Never thought so little could make me smile so big.

Daddy said we could never tell. Sure as he saw Joseph Carl hang, those Baines would see me hang. Out of spite, they’d do it, Daddy said. They’d come back, every one of those Baine brothers, to see me hang. Joseph Carl didn’t have no business dying, and neither did I. This made me wonder how long Daddy had known Joseph Carl should have never been hanged. Probably he’d known all along, and that’s why he would die before that ground ever thawed.

Two days later, Daddy went to Abraham Pace and told him Juna was gone. Told him she gave birth to that baby of Joseph Carl’s and walked right out the door. Next, Daddy went for John Holleran. I don’t know what Daddy told John or what he promised him or what he confessed to him, but John came. He never asked after Juna. Never asked where she’d gone or why she’d gone. That’s the thing that makes me wonder if John has always known.

We were married two weeks later. Same as John, folks didn’t ask much after Juna. The fellows slapped John on the back, told him it was high time he strapped himself in. The ladies stood at arm’s length from me and tipped forward to get a closer look at the baby. If she was sleeping, they’d ask me straight out. Does she have those black eyes? Dark brown, I told them. As dark as brown can be. Annie is as sweet as a baby can be.

John and I lived with Daddy those early days. We slept in the room Juna and I once shared. For the first three months, John slept on the floor. Cold as that floor was, he slept there. I never wore the slip I’d been wearing that night with Ellis Baine, never mentioned the thing John had seen. I wanted him to know I’d never been with a man, not Ellis, not any other. I wanted John to know he’d be my first and he’d be my last. I wanted him to know his mama had been right about our future together. But I couldn’t say those things without bringing to mind the thing John most likely saw every time he closed his eyes.

It was nearly spring and we had buried Daddy when John finally came to our bed. I didn’t have to tell him he was the first, and I would say it brought him some peace to find it out for himself.

“That’s a cold hard floor,” he said when it was done.

1952—ANNIE

IN AN HOUR
or so, folks will begin to arrive. As Annie and Mama walk out the door, Grandma fusses at them for running off, but Mama says they’ll be back in plenty of time and motions for Annie to climb into Daddy’s truck. Mama never drives Daddy’s truck, but today she will.

At first, Annie thinks they’re headed to town because they drive down the hill same as always. But then Mama takes a hard right and starts back into the hills again. She’s wearing her new dress. It’s pale green, and Lessie Collins in town stitched it up so the top is molded to Mama’s body. It shows her every curve and valley such that Daddy couldn’t help rubbing that stubbly chin of his against her neck.

Daddy is sleeping in his own bed again for the first time in two weeks. After Daddy carried Annie home from the Baines’ place—taking care she never saw what had become of Ellis Baine—Daddy, the sheriff, and Abraham talked for a good long time while Miss Watson sat in the back of the sheriff’s car. Once Abraham and the sheriff left, Daddy and Annie waited at the kitchen table until Mama came back from town. When her car pulled up outside, Daddy told Annie again that when he finally drew his last breath in this life, he’d still not have forgiven himself for raising a hand to her but would she please take Caroline and Grandma upstairs and give him and Mama some privacy.

At first, Grandma wouldn’t let Annie eavesdrop from the top of the stairs, but after sitting on the beds and hearing nothing but quiet in the house, Grandma said it wouldn’t do no harm and told Annie to go have a listen.

There wasn’t much to hear from the top of the stairs either. Mostly just Mama crying, not hard crying, but the kind of crying that stuck in the back of her throat and choked off every third or fourth word. Daddy said Abraham had no choice but to fire his gun. Likely Ellis Baine wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, but likely wasn’t good enough. That was Annie up there, and likely wasn’t good enough.

Mama doesn’t stop the truck outside what’s left of her childhood home. Annie never knew her granddaddy on her mama’s side, the man who built this house where the sun rarely shines. That’s what Mama always talks about when she talks about her childhood. No sunshine, she says. Can you imagine? Lord, our socks and shoes never dried. Grandma says Granddaddy’s history sizzles underfoot, but Annie doesn’t ever feel him.

Annie knows now why they drove the truck. She presses a hand to the dashboard as Mama drives up the hill behind her old house. At the top, she stops, yanks off the leather gloves she slipped on so as to not ruin her nails, throws open her door, and climbs out. Annie does the same. Giving Annie a wave to join her, Mama walks to the front of the truck.

There’s sun here. Mama shields her eyes, looks off to the left and to the right. Small mounds of dirt, light brown and each with a hole at its center, litter the ground. Each hole is a spot where the cicadas broke through. Back home, the mounds have mostly been trampled over. The cicadas are singing still, though they’ve dwindled in number. Soon enough, the summer will be a quieter place. There will be more of the critters next summer, but not of this same kind. These cicadas won’t come again for seventeen more years.

“There,” Mama says when she sees it, whatever she’s looking for. Taking long, quick, sure-footed steps because she exchanged her white heels for a pair of boots before setting off, she starts walking.

It’s the fourth Sunday in June. Abraham was supposed to be married by nightfall. Miss Watson never found her something new and something blue, though her dress had been twice altered. But that wedding won’t happen. Instead, Abraham will move south of Lexington, where his daddy got his start. Sheriff Fulkerson thought it might be best for everyone if Abraham put some distance between himself and Miss Watson. The man deserved a fresh start. Like Daddy, Sheriff Fulkerson knew he had no choice but to do what was done. When next Abraham stepped into Grandma’s kitchen, clutching his hat and looking small again for only the second time in his life, Mama wrapped him up in a hug as best she could seeing as how big he was and how small she was. He might well be Annie’s daddy, her real daddy, but mostly he’s still just Abraham.

Annie and Mama walk toward a cluster of trees. Must be water running nearby for such a cluster to grow so thick. Mama stops before she steps into the shade of those trees, and with one hand still shielding her eyes, she points with the other.

“You been wondering what’s become of your Aunt Juna,” Mama says. “She’s there. Somewhere in there.”

“Ma’am?”

“It’s the best I can tell you, Annie. Don’t know who was up there that night, who left those cigarettes you found, though I do believe you found them, but it wasn’t your Aunt Juna.”

“You been writing those letters every Christmas?” Annie asks.

Mama nods. That’s why Aunt Juna knew Caroline and Annie were precious as little girls and then lovely as young women.

“I thought one day you’d learn about Juna being your mama and that it would comfort you to know she loved you. Thought it would comfort you to think she was still out there, somewhere. But you’re my daughter. No more to say about it. She was your Aunt Juna, that’s all. I was the one to first hold you when you came into this world. You’re mine and your daddy’s. That’s who you are.”

Annie steps closer, but like Mama, she doesn’t step into the shade. She might come here again, if there’s a sizzle in the air or something claws at her, but otherwise, she thinks not.

“We’d better get on,” Annie says. “Grandma’ll be wondering.”

•   •   •

ANNIE DOESN’T HAVE
to wait long for Ryce Fulkerson to arrive. He comes alone, riding his bike instead of coming with his parents in his daddy’s patrol car. Annie promised Caroline she’d tell Ryce straightaway about not seeing Jacob Riddle down in that well, but before Annie can finish cutting the lavender bread the way Grandma likes it cut and make her way out to Ryce, Lizzy Morris has arrived too.

More and more folks arrive, all of them wandering through the lavender Daddy and Annie haven’t yet cut. Many of them wander to the top of the hill where they’ll see the Baines’ place and the well and the spot where Ellis Baine died. Annie wants to yell at them to get away and give the man his peace, but Mama says there’s no need for yelling because their curiosity will pass in good time. The legend will die now, Mama says, but she’s wrong. Even though Joseph Carl Baine didn’t kill anyone and he isn’t Annie’s daddy, for these folks, Aunt Juna lives on. Joseph Carl being an innocent man makes Juna Crowley’s legend all the bigger.

But Mama was right about curiosity. It’s short-lived, and as folks fill their arms with bundles of the fresh-cut flowers, each one tied off with a satin ribbon, hug them close, and bury their noses in the blossoms that have finally burst wide open, they begin to forget about the Baines and the well. They take pictures, spin so their skirts puff up like Mama’s sometimes does. Lizzy Morris drags Ryce along as she follows after all the other ladies. And like all the other fellows, Ryce tags after.

Upstairs, Annie sits with Miss Watson. Tending her on her wedding day was always meant to be Annie’s job. She was meant to sit with Miss Watson as she readied herself while Grandma greeted the guests, Mama took their bags and wraps, and Caroline served the food.

Miss Watson arrived right on time for the wedding, except there’s no wedding to be had. She wouldn’t have Abraham in the room because him seeing her before they said “I do” would be bad luck, so he’s standing outside the door while Daddy fetches the sheriff. After Miss Watson arrived, Daddy whispered to Mama and Annie that Miss Watson likely didn’t mean no harm but there was no telling what she might do once she realized there would be no wedding. Best to have the sheriff see to her.

From her upstairs window, Annie watches the people below as Miss Watson steps into the wide skirt of her white dress, pulls the bodice up and over her narrow hips, and slips her arms through the lace sleeves. By this hour, folks have stopped taking pictures and hugging the bundles of lavender. Already they’re accustomed to the sweet smell and the beauty of it all, and they’ve turned to sipping whiskey and listening to Grandma instruct them on the proper uses of lavender.

Miss Watson sits on the edge of Caroline’s bed, her back straight, one hand holding her veil so it doesn’t slip out of place, the other holding a cigarette to her mouth.

“It was you up there,” Annie says, “wasn’t it?”

Miss Watson snubs out the cigarette, rubbing it until it snaps at the filter. Same as all those cigarettes Annie saw by the tobacco barn. It’s Miss Watson’s way of being careful. She’s always been a careful sort, so Annie must have scared her that night for her to drop the butt that was still smoldering.

“You going to tell Abraham?” she says, poking at the pins in her veil. Miss Watson used a dozen or more when securing that veil to her head, but still she’s afraid it’ll come loose. “I’m always fussing at him for smoking. It ruins the paint and dirties up the windows, you know. Wouldn’t do for him to find out I indulge myself. I’ll quit once we’re married.”

“Why?” Annie says, though she already knows why.

Growing older apparently doesn’t ease a person of self-doubt.

“He was always here,” she says. “More and more he was spending the night here. What man does that? Sleeps on another family’s sofa, lets another woman cook his meals? I just wanted to know why. I wanted to know he wasn’t going to leave me.”

“You didn’t see Aunt Juna at your house either,” Annie says. “Did you?”

“I was afraid,” Miss Watson says. “That’s true enough. All your talk of Juna coming home again. I was afraid she’d come for Abe or maybe come for me too. She was evil, you know? Evil through and through. That’s true enough.” She stops fussing with her veil and looks up at Annie. “I even started being afraid of you. Saw you with Ryce that day at the field, and I thought he was looking at you like my Abe used to look at Juna.” Then Miss Watson points one of her hairpins at Annie. “You know she’ll come back one day, that aunt of yours. And I’ll be happy not to be living here when she does. Abe and I, we’re moving to Lexington, did you know?”

“And Mrs. Baine?” Annie says.

“Didn’t even see her,” Miss Watson says, standing at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Could have been dead the whole time I was up there. I didn’t even see her.”

Annie will never know why Mrs. Baine was out there with that gun the night Annie ascended. She may have been waiting for Annie like the sheriff suspected. Or maybe, and this is how Annie will choose to remember it, Mrs. Baine had thought it was Juna standing there in the barn’s doorway, smoking those cigarettes, and she meant to protect the Holleran family.

The door opens, and Mama sticks her head in. “It’s time, Abigail,” meaning the sheriff is here. He’ll take Abigail home, that’s what Mama said, and see to her until she’s well again.

“Hold up,” Annie says.

Miss Watson stands and brushes at the pleats of her white dress while Annie pulls open her top dresser drawer. It’s still there behind her Sunday stockings, exactly like the one Ryce Fulkerson had brought for her. The chalky white frog is wrapped in a white kerchief. She lifts it gently, cradles it with both hands, and steps up to Miss Watson.

Miss Watson believes. Like Abraham, Miss Watson believes in Annie’s know-how.

“You might find yourself worrying about Juna Crowley again one day or feeling somewhat lonely,” Annie says, laying the kerchief and its contents in Miss Watson’s outstretched hand. “Grind this up if you do and sprinkle it on your head. Maybe right before you go to sleep. You’ll feel well by morning and never have another worry about Juna Crowley because you’re probably right. She’ll come back one day.”

Annie says that last part so Miss Watson will never want to come here again.

Miss Watson repeats Annie’s directions so she’ll be sure to do it right and tucks the kerchief in the white satin handbag hung from her forearm.

“You won’t tell about the cigarettes, will you?”

•   •   •

RYCE’S HAND IS
warm on Annie’s arm. And as quick as he gets a hold, Lizzy Morris is at his side.

“Where you been?” he says to Annie.

Maybe that’s what he meant to say, or maybe it’s all he can say with Lizzy hanging from his arm.

Lizzy wears a nearly white dress with just the slightest hint of lavender to it. So perfect for such a day, and with her coloring and her perfectly normal size, it does look nice. On a girl Annie’s size, nearly as tall as Ryce, though not quite because somewhere along the way, he took her over, it would look silly. Instead, Annie wears dark blue, a nicer shade for her, more to her liking.

“You get your truck yet?” Annie asks.

“Nah,” Ryce says, dropping the arm Lizzy had latched onto so her hand falls loose. It’s a move that must make Lizzy angry because she crosses her arms and walks off. “Not going to buy one. Decided to put it all toward college again. Think I might want to do something other than be sheriff. Excuse me a minute,” he says and steps up to the porch to help his grandmother with the steps.

Walking on ahead of Ryce and his grandma, Annie pulls out the rocking chair so its runners won’t knock up against the house. It’s the rocker Grandpa made for Grandma. Daddy says it’s all fixed up, won’t squeak and squeal no more. After folks go home, it’ll come back in the house and sit in the living room again. Annie pats on the seat so Ryce will know his grandma is welcome to have a seat. Ain’t nothing wrong with this rocker.

Before Ryce’s daddy was sheriff, his grandma was sheriff. Sheriff Irlene. No one is meant to tell her that Miss Watson lied all those years ago. Ryce’s grandma isn’t much longer for this life, and no sense in her spending her last days with guilt and regret. She’s not such an old woman, not nearly so old as Mrs. Baine had been, but life is harder for some folks and it takes its toll. Irlene Fulkerson has had a harder calling than most, that’s what Grandma says.

After lowering herself onto the rocker, Mrs. Fulkerson grabs hold of the iced lavender tea Annie pours for her. Her white hair is wound up and pinned off at the crown of her head and she wears a pale-pink lipstick. Ryce’s mama probably helped her to put it on. She pats Annie’s hand and gives a wink, and for a moment, Ryce’s grandma doesn’t look so old.